The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-07-04
LETTERS FROM THE PEOPLE.
Pipes for Natural Gas.

P1pes Tor Natural Gas.
To the EdItor of Indianapo Journals
Inasmuch as City Council and Board of
Aldermen have proceeded cautiously ana have
seemed disposed to protect the people from
monopolistic gas enterprises. it is to be hoped
that their vigilance will not now fail when their
work is but partially completed. One of the
important clauses in the ordinance provides that
all pipes, mains and apparatus of every kind and
description shall be of most improved design
and quality; that they shall be of standard
weight, ETC., and that if the city engineer shall
discover as any time that the work is being
done in careless dilatory, incompetent
or unskillful manner, he shall re-
port the same to the Council
Now it has been suggested that the fourteen
miles of duplicate cast-iron mains owned by our
artifcial-gAs company may be used, and that it
is the intention of the Indianapolis Natural gas
Company to lease these. This proposition at
once seeks to nulify one of the palpable provis-
ions of the ordinance viz. that any company
accepting the provisions of the ordinance shall
lay pipes of the most approved design and
weight, and that they shall be laid under the
eye of the city n Su'hoiles that the
their lives II the city authorities will permit the
Indianapolis company to use these mains what
is to prevent the Indianapolis Gas Company and
the illuminating gas company from entering
into an arrangement whereby use OF all the
pipes owned by the illuminating gas interest
IuAy Dc uSeQs IL looks as IL Tue way Is D6lng
paved for this arrangement. It would result in
practical ownership by the illuminating gas
octopus" In natural gas. at perhaps ten cents
a thousand feet during the hours of daylight for
both heating and lighting purposes. and natural
gas for illuminating purposes at night at 81 80 a
thousand feet.
The ordinance further provides that the city
may, after five years, require any company
furnishing gas under the ordinance. to pay into
the city treasury a tax of cents a foot on mains
laid by the company within the city. Now if
the old mains are to be used, the city's reserved
right to levy this is gone for the reason that
the company has laid pipes
Again. the ordinance provides that the city
shall have the right to purchase the entire plant
or plants of any company at the expiration of
ten years. Should the construction which may
be sought be placed the ordinance with re-
gard to old pipes, the city would have no plant
to purchase.
Again. 1t is evident that the trainers of the
ordinance never contemplated the use of old
pipes. Their thorough investigation at Pitts
most approved design and quality should be
laid, and that, too under the eye of the city
civil engineer. 1t is evident that he cannot pass
the construction. workmanship or quality
of fourteen miles of pipe laid years
ago. If he could do this.
could be pass two hundred
miles To say nothing of half million dollars
lost to the laboring men if the city authorities
relax their vigilance the lives and property
of the people will be jeopardized Since the
clutches of the Standard OIL Company have been
pany), it will be we'll for our protectors to see
that the ordinance is enforced, and that the
clutches of these two interests kept off OF